Devran Restaurant

We love Turkey and turkish food but there is nothin special in this place. Not happy at all with the service. There are more restaurants to go in Green Lanes. Zer, Selale, Diyarbakir or even the most famous in the area Gorkyuzu. So, so many option to enjoy a proper turkish meal with good quality and service. With this place we were just disappointed. After more than 3 years living in this area it was the first time that we were in that mood because of them. Never come back!

Of the restaurant’s we’ve visited in the area (it’s been a fair few), this one is probably the best for the quantity, quality and flavour of the food when having a sit down meal (Hala is better for takeaway though).
Be warned, do not be too ambitious with your starter and main — Devran is also exceptionally good value for money as the servings are huge. You will be given a large Mediterranean salad and bread for free shortly after ordering. My partner and I often find that this makes an additional starter redundant (we’ve been stuffed before the main has arrived the 2 times we made the mistake of getting a proper starter).
And if you go for the shared meat platter for two, it’s enough to feed four (not joking). Happily you can take left overs away.
The downside is that it gets very busy and the staff are sometimes a bit stretched thin because of it. Quality of service (like many places in the area) is a bit haphazard — sometimes great and sometimes bad, and often within the same sitting!
Summary, very good food at excellent value, but with slightly mediocre service when it’s really busy (which is almost every evening).

Visited Devran a few months back and forgot to do a review. It was my first time in a Turkish restaurant and I was not dissapointed. The restaurant was busy and the service was very speedy. We were given bread and dips before we even ordered. The bread was so fresh and the dips were deelish!
When my main arrived (a kebab and rice) it tasted chargrilled, which I love. The flavours were really nice and the rice was cooked well. Needless to say, we ordered way too much food, but the waiter was happy to package it up for us to take home.
I’ll definitely be visiting here again when I’m next in London.

Brilliant! Lovely food, really well cooked. They also brought us lots of dips and salad that they didn’t charge us for. The bread is really fresh! We were stuffed and only paid £24 including booze. Lost one star as one of our mains was ten minutes later than the other and we suspect they’d forgotten, we didn’t really care as we had loads to eat, but know that kind of thing can really annoy some people. But the food was probably the best Turkish food I have had.

I visited on a quite afternoon last week with my hubby. The food was great and the service very attentive. I can see how they might get in a pickle on a busy saturday night. The bad reviews are a bit extreme I think.

Visited Devran with the lady of my life last week. It is a really big new resteraunt, well over 100 covers and everything is shiny and slippery. Black marble floors with glitter, chrome seats, auto flush toilets. Someone has pushed the boat out on this place!
The food was really decent, nice salad and good friendly service. In fact the staff might have been a bit too attentive, was approached at least 3 times to ask if everything was ok and even had to give an impromptu english lesson to the very kind waiter. Its all good.
Well worth a visit in the evening, this place is hugely popular with local Turkish/​Kurdish residents and there is a real great atmosphere on Green Lanes these days.

Well, there I was about to write a review of Devran and I see that theduck has apparently already written it for me. The criticisms in his review are still very much true on the 4^th of February a busy Saturday night. Sounds like we had better food than him, but certainly not the best we’ve had in the area. Some areas that could be improved: 1. Don’t put so many tables in your restaurant that staff have to ask you to move your chair in order to serve the table behind you. 2. Don’t put so many tables in your restaurant that, when it’s busy, one of your friends ends up BEING SAT ON by a woman from the next-​door table by mistake. 3. Try to ensure that if you put tea x 4 £0.00 on the bill, you actually bring customers some tea. I resisted the temptation to confuse things further by asking them to offer to refund us for this item when it didn’t arrive. 4. Pides and grilled items should turn up at the same time, not half an hour apart. 5. If you are a waiter and a customer asks you if you can check on their food, it’s best to actually do this, rather than just wandering off, 6. Telling a customer that everyone is waiting, we are busy is not going to encourage that customer to help make the restaurant busy in future. Overall, decent food, but disappointing service (I reckon partly caused by the packing-​in the tables issue mentioned above there were just too many diners in the space for the kitchen or even the numerous waiting staff to handle). Not nearly good enough to tempt me away from my favourite Turkish restaurants on Grand Parade

Since the opening of Devran Restaurant I have dined their twice and I am pleased to say that I was very delighted with the service and the food. We had ordered a devran mixed kebab, from the adana kebab to the salads my taste buds were tingling; the only place where I had eaten such great original turkish kebab like Devran’s was in Istanbul. As we entered the restaurant we were greeted with warm welcoming by the manager and the waiters, and were placed to our seats. As we were eating the waiters were all attentive to our needs and made sure that everything was satisfactory. So overall for service I give devran a rating of ¹⁰⁄₁₀. I do not know were to start with about describing the flavour rich kebabs of Devran, from the chicken and lamb shish to the liver (which was my favourite), to the lamb chops, everything was succulent with flavour and cooked to its perfect point. We had a range of delectable starters all on a very organised and appealing plate for the middle to accompany our main course. There was also complimentary turkish yagli bread accompanied with the main course. All in all I am pleased to say that Devran Restaurant is from now on my first choice of turkish restaurant. I wish the owners of Devran a very succesful future which is promised if they carry on at the same rate and I would like to recommend Devran for all Turkish food lovers. By Sed K

Went there for lunch. The restaurant is smart and clean. Was brought complementary bread and olives. Ordered an adana durum (wrap). Was one of the best I have had out of Turkey. Perfectly grilled meat, fresh salad and crisp bread that did not suffer from the usual chewiness of inferior products. Complementary Baklava nad Turkish tea were of a very high standard too. The only complaint was that service was a bit hit and miss. At the end the manager asked me for my feedback and shook my hand and said he hoped I would come again.

The quality of Turkish eateries along Green Lanes in Harringay, has made this stretch not just a Turkish meeting and shopping precedent, but a go to destination for shish kebab, doner and mixed grills for Londoners wanting tasty pides, kebabs, stews and meze. Having moved to this area nine months ago I can claim to have eaten in all of the Turkish restaurants on this strip. I could see opportunity for one more profitable business provided it is a large (bigger than one shop unit in size), but excellent priced and tasting destination restaurant. I was excited in late November as two shop units begun to morph into a classy, clean, barren dining room and kitchen. It opened on 30^th December (surely a ploy to in the future write ‘since 2011′) and I write after a lunchtime visit on 31^st December 2011. Devran was a hugely disappointing dining experience. In fact it was so bad this review includes some hints to the management on how to improve because the two managers by the door on exit didn’t hold it open to thank us for our custom or ask what we thought of our visit. The facts are this; in an area where the best thrive, others won’t survive. I hope it was opening weekend issues and Devran improves by the time you read this because if not, it will be gone by September 2012. So the pluses that built to the excitement include big clean window frontage showing the bbq and five daily stews. The name of the eatery changes colour at night. The staffs have trendy little waistcoats. There are lots of staff (15+) and when paying they take credit cards (only Gokyuzu and Antepiller over the road do this too, most are cash only). The fact of the matter is that this place is style over content as we learnt and whilst it would do OK in South London, if the early mistakes we encountered are not ironed out, the business will not survive. We ordered a starter of mixed meze and two stews along with drinks. Sadly we didn’t start with the starters as it was delivered after the lukewarm stews. For some reason salad and bread (usually delivered with drinks/​starters in other Turkish restaurants on the Green Lanes strip) didn’t turn up till after the main course. Rice also came on a separate plate. Not sure why, but this was not hot either and meant there was more plates on the table than the table for two had space for. Now for the clincher the food simply wasn’t as tasty as others on this strip. Salad was soaked in Vingerette. One lamb stew barely featured lamb and the other had peppers and potatoes added to pad out the lamb and aubergine mix. On our visit, the waiting staff were not busy and desperate for something to do. In competitive dining rooms on Green Lanes waiters whizz around offering more bread/​salad and always offer Turkish tea on the house after the meal delivering it with a smile and a wipe down of the table. Not here. Not today. They were more concerned about taking back the excess plates they had brought to the table and my wife had to ask for tea. Poor table didn’t get cleaned until we had paid. I am sure this is just teething pains for the new restaurant. There has been no promotion to local residents and people are trying it instead of others to see what it is like. Therefore, judge on reviews after this one because either they will say the same thing and nothing improves or the owner will take my advice: Shut for a day. Take all 15+ staff to Gokyuzu across the road for lunch and then onto to Diyarbakir two hundred metres away to learn what your customers expect from you. Then invite local people (I might be persuaded to return) to see what you do and how you do it as good, if not better than the rest. Otherwise, I fear this place may have failed by the time you have read this review.